


Six Haircuts

by An_R



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Dirty Talk, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Young Armitage Hux, Young Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:50:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7507201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/An_R/pseuds/An_R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a silly idea of mine. If you have boys with great hair, their story can be told through haircuts. This fic was revised and updated on march/17. Please, mind the tags, they were there for a reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Haircuts

(i) 

“Welcome, young Ben. We were waiting for you,” says the middle-aged man in brown Jedi-like robes. “My name is Qiang Jaakko, I’m the administrator of this Temple. Please, follow me.”

Ben looks back to the ship that dropped him on that forgotten planet one last time. There is no one there to say goodbye to, but he does it anyway. 

The man is a total stranger to him. He sounds formal and a bit pompous, almost like one of the New Republic politicians he knows so well. Ben doesn’t feel welcomed at all.

Worse, that is not what he expected. 

“Where’s my-- I mean... where’s Luke?”

You shall address him as Master Skywalker from now on,” says Qiang Jaakoo. “I'm sure he may seem young and friendly to you, but he is a Jedi Master, a tittle that commands respect.” 

“Where’s Master Skywalker?” Ben insists, feeling a little uneasy. He wishes his father were there. Han Solo always knew what to do in awkward situations. He didn't inherit that talent though.

Qiang Jaakoo leads him to a small cabin half a mile away from the Jedi Temple where he is supposed to live the next years of his life. “This way, please,” he says, holding the wooden door open. He only answers after they’re inside. “Master Skywalker had an urgent matter to attend, a small training accident with one of the younglings, so he asked me to receive you. Please, sit down.”

"What matter? He said he'd be here..." Ben stops. By the way his host's eyes go wide, he realizes how whiny he must have sounded and considers telling him the truth. That he is Master Skywalker's nephew, Senator Leia Organa's son and that Luke's absence is nothing but a mistake... but then he remembers that not only his safety is at stake. Since some Empire fanatics assassinated Mon Mothma's grandson and a couple of his schoolmates sixteen years ago, Ben stopped travelling under his own (last) name. He can count the few times he was allowed outside the anonymity system the New Republic created to protect the children of those envolved in the Empire's downfall. So with his mother's voice in his mind reminding him of the value of sacrifice and the price he should pay for his privileges, he looks at the floor and offers a small apology, but is ignored. 

There is only a table with one single chair in that sad looking place. Ben sits on the chair, while Qiang Jaakoo examines a pile of clothes on the table.

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

Qiang Jaakoo takes a quick glance at him. He’s clearly disgusted. For that man, Ben isn't only rude, but also too old for a padawan. As far as he knows, Luke teaches the ways of the Force to a bunch of eight, ten year old kids. All the other adults that live and work at the Temple are not force-sensitives; they are followers of the Church of the Force, an ancient cult that managed to survive the Empire and whose members became Luke's personal staff, or so it seems. Ben doesn’t have to ask to know that Qiang Jaakoo is one of them. 

“I hope you understand that the privilege you seek here requires not only talent but also abnegation and sacrifice.”

“Sure.”

“This is a sacred place. Master Skywalker is sacred man, in a way. The future the Jedi Order lies on his shoulders.”

“Master Skywalker recruited me himself. We've talked... I mean, I know more about Jedi stuff than it looks like.” The information doesn’t help. On the contrary. Qiang Jaakoo frowns a little, barely hiding his contempt. “You don’t look like an orphan.”

It doesn’t sound like a compliment. It’s obvious that the man didn’t buy the corellian orphan story Luke made up to hide his identity, but Ben doubts that his guesses are anywhere near the truth. 

“Not all orphans starve in abject misery, you know.” He knows this is true. Senator Organa makes sure of it. Even Empire orphans must be taken into care, she says. All children are the same. 

“I hope the clothes fit you. Your size required some improvisation.” Qiang Jaakoo stares blankly at the wall while Ben changes. “Master Skywalker says you’re very gifted.”

It doesn’t sound like a compliment either. 

Ben fells like he’s in a prison uniform. The boots are heavy and uncomfortable, the fabric is rough, the tunic too big. He doesn’t like wearing utility belts. They look stupid if you're not Han Solo or doesn't have Poe Dameron's hot hips. 

“Sit,” the man commands. Ben sees he is holding a knife. He knows what it’s for. It’s the last day of Ben’s well-kept shoulder-length hair. He swallows hard. He’d never forgive himself if he cried over a simple haircut of all things.

“What’s that?” Qiang Jaakoo takes the gold pin that holds some of the dark locks away from Ben’s face. “Orphans possess jewelry where you came from?”

“It was a gift.” Ben immediately regrets the answer. 

“I see.”

The man’s thoughts are too loud now.

“This is not what you’re thinking,” Ben tells him. 

“You don’t know what I am thinking”.

_Wrong. I do._ He almost says that aloud, but he fears that if he opened his mouth, he would be sick.

The haircut is unnecessary painful. His host slashes each lock of hair as if he’s sawing wood with a blunt blade. Only one thin lock is spared for the padawan braid. Still, the worst part begins when Jaakoo starts to trim what is left of his hair. The man brushes the scalp with his fingers, taking his time, enjoying it too much.

“Is it done?” Ben asks when the uninvited fingers linger on the back of his neck.

“There it is,” Jaakoo replies calmly. “Are these tears?” he points out, looking pleased for the first since they met. “Homesick already?”

Ben is too enraged to answer. He looks down to his own hands. It’d be so easy to make him regret.

 _So easy..._ Ben tells himself, forgetting that sometimes, his inner voice isn't entirely is own. 

“We don’t have servants or cleaning droids here," Jaakoo informs. "Everyone take care of their own mess, even the younglings. There’s a broom and a bin over there. I’ll be waiting outside.” He leaves and the door slams after him, hard enough to make the man jump.

Ben smiles.

 _I told you that you would hate this place_ , says a voice in Ben's head, so clearly that it feels like company. _There is nothing those pitiful fanatics can teach you._

“I came here to learn from my uncle.”

_To learn from your uncle, you say. And where is he now? This looks more like another exile to me._

“Go away. You’re the reason they sent me here in the first place.”

 _You really believe that? It’s so sad that such talent is wasted in ignorance and denial._

“I don’t care what you think. I’ll learn to control my powers and then I’ll go home.”

_Oh, my dear child. Of course you will._

 

(ii)

Cadet A. Hux waits patiently in line for the semiannual medical inspection. His classmates use the indolent time to babble, but there’s no way he’d waste any of his time near the final tests, so he takes his datapad wherever he goes, cafeteria and medbay included. 

In his mind, he repeats to himself: the Inner Rim is located between the New Republic Colonies and the Expansion Region. Some of its habitable planets are Kuat, Onderon, Kashyyyk, Gorse and its moons, Cynda, Berelit and Jade. Navigation coordinates are…

Hux’s line is called and he puts away the datapad. The nine boys waiting along him shut up and enter the examination hall. 

“Halt. Turn. Strip,” commands the nurse in charge. She looks like a droid and it's simple like that. The First Order's got no time for teenage modesty and no one knows it better that cadet Armitage Hux, an Empire bastard that happened to get in the good graces of important people in the past. The boys take their uniforms out, keeping only regulation undershirts and shorts that, in Hux's opinion, make him look even paler and thinner. The chill is almost unbearable, but none of them dare to complain. 

An actual med droid exams each of them and takes notes. Hux can’t help to notice the proud face of the boy beside him after the droid announces his stats. "Cadet J. Dalton, age 18, height: 6'2", weight: 210 lbs". 

Hux is the next. "Cadet A. Hux, age 17, height: 6’, weight: 160 lbs", recites the droid. 

Cadet J. Danton’s smile grows wider. His arrogance is understandable. Growing up on space makes mass gain harder for most of kids. Those who manage to look solid in the absence of non-synthetic food and gravity are seen as having superior physical constitution and given special precedence. 

After the droid does his job they wait and Hux has to rely on all his willpower to avoid shivering.

“Cold?” asks Dalton, in a whisper that only Hux could hear. 

“Yes, but so are you,” Hux answers.

“Not as much, snowflake.”

“Silence!” shouts the droid looking nurse. 

Dalton is the next to be called. He enters the examiner’s office. Hux waits. He looks at his hands. His nails are so purple from the cold that they look painted. He wishes he had his datapad with him. Studying would help him take his mind from the temperature and from what’s to come.

He knows he will be in trouble. Although he’s an inch taller, his trousers are loose, more than the last time. The examiner likes to make the cadets cry; it’s like a game for him. Hux never gave him the pleasure of seeing him break. There’s no insult or humiliation in the examiners’ repertory that his father’s indoctrination program didn’t prepare him for. In truth, Armitage Hux isn't as much enthusiastic about Brendon Hux's past achievements as his First Order teachers believe, but he has to admit that in some aspects, his work was brilliant and with some needed adaptations and improvements, it will become a key piece for future of the Order and his as well. 

Danton leaves the office twenty minutes later. He’s clearly upset. The boy is heathy and strong like a bull, but not very bright. He still doesn’t understand that the inspection has little to do with body measurements. 

“Cadet A. Hux,” the droid calls his name. 

Hux can’t help thanking whoever decided that the first names of the cadets aren’t worth mentioning.

“So, here you are again. Brendon Hux’s glorified bastard; skinny as a kaminoan and as much as ugly. Let’s see what your file says.” The examiner takes his time, rechecking information on his datapad. He wears a winter greatcoat, gloves and a ceremonial cap. “How’s combat training?”

“I’m third of my class. Top in artillery. Sir.”

“I’m impressed to know that someone as weak as you can lift a blaster.”

“With all due respect, sir, they say that Supreme Leader Snoke has a very lean frame,” Hux answers. 

_Touché._

The examiner frowns.

“Show me your hands.”

Hux stretched his arms.

“Strip.”

There is almost nothing to take off and the act is utterly unnecessary, but Hux obeys. The examiner stares at his naked groin while he shivers. He almost can feel his eyes burning on his skin. A small part of him still wants to shout, to run... But then he remembers. Sexual instincts are nothing but a tool, his mentor once said. Use it or let it be used against you. 

“I’ll recommend that you get rid of the freckles. It’s a childish body feature and you’re not a child anymore”.

“Yes, sir,” Hux answers, even though he knows the Order would never waste medical resources with ordinary skin imperfections. The examiner just wants to state that his staring has a point other than providing him masturbating material.

“Turn around.”

Hux faces the wall.

“More freckles. Even in your sorry little ass.”

The examiner start to take notes and Hux is left naked and freezing for more than fifteen minutes in his perception. 

“Your hair is too long,” the examiner finally concludes.

“It was cut a month ago.”

“Did I ask you anything?”

“No, sir.”

The same droid enters the office. 

“Cadet Hux needs a haircut.”

“Anything else, master?”

“No, just a haircut. I’ll change his supplements as well, add Y4 and 2KN to his shots. If he's going to be this narrow, let him at least be tall.”

Hux dresses up and leaves the office. The relief of having something warm over his skin fells like a bless and for a moment, he even forgets the examiner filthy eyes on his ass.

He'd remember it later, before his sleeping cycle, though. He'd remember and be so angry with himself for failling to feel nothing about it.

Once he's dreessed and a little less shaken, he goes straight to the adjoining room and sits for the haircut.

The droid grabs a trimming device. "There’s hardly any hair to cut,” he says. “I must confirm the directive.”

“It’s correct. Go ahead.” No one leaves inspection unpunished. An unecessary haircut is the least of his concerns.

“If you say so, master.”

The droid does what he’s told, but he can‘t help cutting the cadet’s skin near the right ear. It’s a small thing but enough to send a droid to the melting pit. 

“I’m so sorry, master. I miscalculated.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“And I said I’m fine,” he almost shouts. There was a time, in his first years as a First Order cadet, that Hux enjoyed taking his frustrations on machines. Somehow, it stopped being fun after a while, when he realized how pointless that was.

When the droid is finished, Hux gets up. There's almost no hair on his head now, but that doesn't bother him anymore. 

“Please, wait outside for the evaluation result,” the droid says, sounding hesitant.

Hux leaves the office. His datapad is placed over a chair, beside Cadet Dalton.

Dalton still looks defeated. No one is babbling now.

Hux doesn’t care. He grabs his datapad, sits and waits.

“I can’t believe that fucker went easy on you,” Dalton tells him, in a low, whispered voice. “You bet I’ll have my hair long next time.”

Hux doesn’t answer. While his classmate snuffles, he reads his datapad and repeats in his mind: the Inner Rim is located between the New Republic Colonies and the Expansion Region. Some of its habitable planets are Kuat, Onderon, Kashyyyk, Gorse and its moons, Cynda, Berelit and Jade…

 

(iii)

Ben sits on the cold floor of the starship. He’s covered with blood, sweat and soot and stills holds the lightsaber hilt. He can't breath. He feels like he's dead inside.  


It’s done. The Jedi Temple, the Force worshippers' village, the new Jedi Order… It’s all gone.

“We’ll be landing soon,” says the dark Knight who took him from the Temple’s aches. His face is hidden behind a mask, the voice distorted. 

Ben doesn’t respond. He can barely acknowledge him.

The Knight removes his helmet and squats beside him. “I must see if you’re hurt.” He touches Ben’s damp forehead with a gloved hand. “It’s normal to be feverish after embracing the dark. Sometimes there are bleedings and red spots on the skin too. It’ll be over soon if you're strong enough.”

There’s a burn on Ben’s right forearm, some scratches, but nothing of notice. The Knight isn’t pleased though. His concern grows.

“She is calling…” Ben whispers, his unfocused eyes now brimming with tears.

“Who?”

Ben looks like he’s about to have a breakdown. He's tall and physically strong for someone who was put on some weird Jedi diet (for 'purification purposes', as he was told) and the knight considers restraining his arms just in case, but decides against it. Force users don't need arms to cause damage afterall. 

“Who is calling you?” the knight insists, a little worried.

“Mother. She feels it. She’s calling me.”

“Hm, I thought Skywalker would be the one to try something like that,” the knight says more to himself than to young man in front of him. Ben presses his forehead against his knees and the knight suspects that he's crying, although there's no sound to confirm it. For an instant, he's tempted to pet Ben's shoulders or offer him a strong drink, anything to easy his pain, but he knows he's not supposed to interfere. His master had warned him that the lad would be conflicted, that there’s still light in him. 

The knight stands up. "Hang on. I have to check the landing procedure. I’ll be right back.”

He goes back to the cockpit, believing the place provides him some privacy, but Ben can hear everything, even the ticking sound of a single loose screw in the landing gear.

“Master,” the Knight calls. “I need your guidance.”

The transmission fails. He checks the ship’s comm.

“Master, I think the boy may be losing his mind.”

He tries again and again, until he realizes the communications are dead for good.

The knight punches the inoperative panel; his fear of failing his master almost palpable. Vader’s grandson is too precious; they’ve been waiting for him for far too long. So unfortunate that with all his power and bloodline, the boy seems so weak.

“Weak, am I?”

He is surprised to see him standing. Ben enters the cockpit and sits beside him. The madness in his eyes is still there, but not in the same way. He wasn't crying. He looks hollowed out.

“You should be resting.” 

“You should be landing this piece of junk.” 

“I’m about to. How do you fell?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be sick.”

“I hate mind readers, you know.”

“And I hate old ships.”

“No, you don’t.”

Ben looks at him. The knight is a human man in his thirties. He could be anyone.

“I’m only a good guesser,” he says.

“Do you have a name?”

“I’m the Sniper. Brace yourself. This piece of junk shakes a lot while landing.”

Ben closes his eyes. The landing is almost as harsh as he expected. 

“There’s one thing,” Ben says as the ship stops. “The braid must go.”

The knight opens a compartment under the panel. “Pick a knife”.

“I must rip it off, but I don’t think I can do it myself now.”

“O-kay..." The knight isn't surprised the lad still wants to carry one last Jedi tradition. Those bigots no doubt did the hell of a number on him. "This is going to hurt.”

The knight is quick. Ben doesn’t utter a sound. 

Pain feels different to him now, it helps shutting memories out, gets him in touch with the Force he’s never known. He sees five planets exploding at a push of one button, the screams of millions and then silence. He sees the ghost of his grandfather burn and disappear and a redhead man looking at him with wide green eyes.

“Ben?” the knight snaps his fingers near his eyes. “We have to go.”

“Ben is dead.”

“Of course. My apologies. Can you stand?”

He nods as warm blood runs down his neck.

Five other knights in black wait for them outside. There are others too, but they seem insignificant. They kneel before the newcomers and for a moment Ben wonders if the so called Sniper is some chancellor of the Dark Side, but his companion joins the other in worship.

The boy that once was Ben is the one they are kneeling to. 

“Vader lives,” one of them says. 

“Vader lives,” the others repeat.

A tiny man in white robes approaches. He reminds him of those pitiful devotees that lived around Skywalker's Jedi Temple. He points at a cave. “You must go inside alone, your lordship. Master waits for you.”

There’s no turning back now.

As he walks towards the cave, he feels her calling for the last time, like a whisper, so soft and yet so full of pain. But as soon as he steps inside, it's silent. And for the first time in years, he opens his mind to his voice again. 

_Welcome, my child. You’re home at last._

 

(iv)

Hux wakes up to the noise of people talking in the medical box next to his, which indicates that visiting time has begun at the medbay of the Explorer starship.

He twitches in bed, but there’s not much he can do with a broken leg and two fractured ribs, so he closes his eyes, trying to ignore the nearby babbling.

“You have orange hair.”

He snaps his eyes open. There a girl in his box, a junior cadet, by the way she’s dressed, not older than he was when he joined the Order.

“I like it.” She smiles, showing the gaps left by her missing baby teeth. 

Aside from dental imperfections, the girl looks like a piece of the Order propaganda in her neat dark blue uniform and braided hair. Hux wonders if he is still dreaming. He’s been locked in med bay for three weeks and he never received a visitor. Not that he expected one.

“Laila!” Another girl enters his box. “Oh… I’m so, so sorry, Lieutenant Hux. I knew it was a bad idea to let her come,” she rushes to say, truly ashamed. “I told you to wait outside, you little monster!”

“It’s okay. She did nothing wrong. I was awake,” he says, just in case children discipline is still as bad as he remembers.

The older girl relaxes a bit, but shoves the child outside the box anyway. Hux knows her very well; she’s Lieutenant Ayla Tarkin, grandniece of Grand Moff Tarkin himself and one of the most well-known junior officers of the First Order.

“Are you alone?” She asks, before realizing it’s a foolish question. “Sorry! So stupid of me. Of course I know Commander Hux passed away last year. He’d be so proud of you. What you all endured... You were very brave.”

“We were captured. There’s nothing to be proud of.”

“It was a trap! A nasty trap set by those Outer Rim low life pirates. The Order should never have started business with those thugs in the first place.” She seems truly angry, but maybe it’s because one of her cousins was among the captured. “They told me you fought them, that they broke your leg to punish you. The Order will know how to reward that.”

“We've ravaged their planet. That’s enough reward.”

She sits in a chair near the bed. “I think I should have come here before, you’re just beside my cousin. That was so unthoughtful of me.”

Lieutenant Ayla Tarkin is not only the most well-known of the junior officers, she is the one every male officer is trying to date. She's a beautiful brunette young woman, with clear blue eyes and a powerful family name... and the new regime needs children, or so they say. Of course, breeding isn’t a prior aim for bastards like Hux, but for most of First Order officers, a marriage like this would worth as much more than a triple promotion.

“I’m fine. I’ll be discharged soon. Visitors are too noisy most of times.”

“Am I bothering you?”

“No… Not at all. It’s not what I meant.”

They look at each other for a while, but Hux refrains from saying more. That’s all too awkward for him. 

“You know, Laila is right. You look cute with your hair like that. I’ve never noticed you’re a redhead before. Why do you keep shaving it so short?”

Hux isn’t sure if it’s to be taken as a compliment. After almost fifteen weeks since imprisonment, his hair is absurdly long and totally against regulation. And the only reason he isn't got a full long beard to match it is because he had it laser shaved a day before the mission. Even though, he’s sure that after all he went through he must be looking like a starving refugee. 

“I’m sorry, I know you’re not much found of small talk. I can tell you some news from Rataka Prime’s outpost. I’ve been there last week. Ah, that’s important and you should know. The Finalizer is recruiting. With your grades, the post is yours. Please, don’t tell anyone I told you. Our former classmates are so happy thinking you won’t be competing with them this time.”

“I know.”

“You do? That was while you were… Oh, com’on! They invited you before that?”

“Sort of…”

“Damn. No wonder people hate you!” She stops, realizing what she just said. “I didn’t mean in a literal sense. It’s just that you are so good and so, you know… so perfect. But it’s alright, of course. Who wouldn’t like to be in your place?”

The girl’s monologue is confuse and utterly pointless, but somehow amusing. It distracts Hux from the pain of being held to a bed for so long.

“I bet no one would like to be in my place now.”

“Even so, believe me.” She smiles. It looks so warm and truthful. He should be repulsed by the lack of purpose of it but somehow, he can't. He even feels like returning the smile but that's beyond him. Being nice is not his thing. Never was.

“Ah, I saw Supreme Leader Snoke’s new apprentice,” she adds. 

“Another one?”

“This is different. He was given precedence.”

Hux frowns.

“You don’t like it.”

“It’s not my place to like it or not.”

“They say he is special, that he may be Lord Vader reincarnated. He even dresses like him. I know it sounds silly, but the guy gave me the creeps. He’s definitely not like the last one. Do you remember the last one?”

“How can I forget?”

They laugh. For someone who couldn't manage a smile a minute ago, things were escalating in a truly incomprehensible fashion.

“Ayla, are you in there?” someone calls from outside.

“Yes.”

“Visiting time is over. We’re leaving.”

“Okay,” she looks at Hux. “I have to go.”

“Thank you... I mean, for the company.”

“You’re a nice guy, you know. I’m glad we talked.”

She leaves, but not before smiling at him again. 

“Who were you talking to, Ayla?” Hux hears someone ask, an older woman, if he would guess.

“To Lieutenant Hux.”

“Brendon Hux’s boy?”

“The one and only.”

“Darling, you can do so much better…”

“Please, aunt…”

Hux stays awake for the rest of the day. 

In his idle time, he imagines himself picking prominent heirs as prospective spouses and why he never considered that before. Then he pictures himself flirting with the Supreme Leader’s new disciple, even not knowing if he’s properly a heir or if he has the face of a hutt under the Darth Vader helmet. 

Two shifts after, they start to prepare him for discharge. The med droids come and go, realizing him from the structures that held his body together. It’d take a couple of days more for him to be free from the medbay and ready to assume his new position, but the worst is past and he’s grateful for that.

In his last shift as a patient, a droid comes to cut his hair. Hux asks not to have it shaved so short this time.

 

(v)

“I didn’t think you’d have the nerve to come here,” says General Hux, staring at the masked figure of Kylo Ren, standing at the door of his personal quarters.

Over six months after the Starkiller base downfall, Supreme Leader’s apprentice returned to the Finalizer. They even met, only once, at the bridge. Hux never allowed himself to have illusions about the survival of their liaison, but he never thought he’d be solemnly ignored either. 

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow,” Kylo Ren says. His voice sounds flat, even distorted by the mask.

“How thoughtful of you to notify me. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Can I come in?”

Hux sighs. “Fine. Be my guest.”

Ren follows him to the living room. There are two couches there, but none of them sit.

“I see you found yourself a new mask, just like the last one. You Knights of Ren do value traditional design.”

“Hux, I—”

“It’s so nice of you to keep calling me Hux, like we were old friends, but would you mind taking this damn thing of your face? You own me that at least.”

Ren does as he says without a word.

“Your hair is ridiculously long, you know,” Hux states, trying not to be concerned by the scar on Ren's cheek oy how tired he looks.

“I came to say goodbye. I’m sorry I didn’t come here before, I was busy.”

“Busy? You arrived a week ago and spent most of this time locked in your room.”

“I was meditating.”

“Of course! Sitting on the floor and doing nothing is part of your job, how could I forget?”

“You’re angry.”

“Really? You think so?”

“Hux, I didn’t get away to punish you,” he approaches, but Hux takes a step back. “I had to finish my training and… Please, don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you despised me.”

“I don’t despise you. I wish I did though.”

“I missed you.”

Hux crosses his arms when he senses what Ren is about to do. “No. You don’t have the right to—”

Ren steps forward and embraces him anyway. His arms feel like a warm winter coat in the freezing cold of an inspection room. There are things just too impossible to fight, Hux thinks. Unluckily for him, Ren is among them.

“I’m sorry,” Ren says. “For leaving you when you most needed me. I know. After the loss of Starkiller Base. It was a harsh time and I wasn’t here for you.”

“Why?” Hux whispers. “You finished your training a month ago. Why didn’t you come back?”

“I’ll tell you soon enough, I promise you.”

Hux fells Ren long fingers caressing the back of his head, his warmth, that amazing scent of him. “You’ll be the death of me,” he confesses.

“No. I’ll give you another life, when the right time comes.”

“Please, stay until you leave. Don’t make me beg.”

“Until I leave, I’m all yours.”

“To do as I please?”

“Fully.”

Hux looks at him in his eyes. “I want you to suck my dick with those sinful lips of yours. I want you to fuck me hard and come inside me, more than once. I want you to scream my name while I lick your hole and stick my tongue into it. And…”

Ren is already as breathless as he’s hard in his pants. 

“Are you a fucking teenager? Let me finish.”

“And?”

“I want you to let me cut you hair before you’re gone.”

 

(vi)

Ren enters the cabin, locking up the door before him. He leaves a bag of groceries by the door, without taking his eyes off the man who pretends to sleep on a bed made of cushions and blankets.

“Did you do what I asked you?” Hux doesn’t move. The question sounds like an accusation.

Ren sighs. “You know very well I didn’t.”

“Why did you lock the door? You know that’s not what is stopping me from leaving.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling better, Hux.”

Hux gets up. He looks less pale and weak than before, but anger seems to have replaced what was left of his patient docility.

“How long are you going to keep me prisoner?”

“You’re not a prisoner. You’d be one if I hadn’t taken you out of that base.”

“Do you hear yourself? The fact that you believe you saved me doesn’t give you the right to keep me here. And where is here anyway?”

“Centurion. It’s one of the planets I lived as a padawan. There’s nothing and no one here. You’re safe. For now.”

“Outer Rim?”

“Yes.”

Hux takes a deep breath. “You know I have to go back.”

“No! You’re right, I can’t keep you here against your will, but I also can’t let you go back to the Order. It’s over. I killed Snoke. If you go back there, sooner or later you’ll be arrested and locked for life, if not executed. Is that what you want?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Hux shouts. “Don’t you understand that I have a command? That I have a responsibility?” he breaths hard. “Of course, you don’t. You’re a fucking traitor.”

The hurt look Ren gives him fells like a slap. Hux sits on the improvised bed. It’s only decent piece of furniture of the small hut Ren took him after the combined forces of the Resistance and the New Republic wiped out the Order base on Rataka Prime. The blaster wound in his arm still pains him, but he has to admit Ren did a nice job patching him up, considering the circumstances. 

“Why didn’t they execute you?” Hux asks. “You’re no better than I am, Ben Solo.”

“Ben Solo is still dead and the Resistance did try to arrest me. They almost succeeded, actually. No one knew my grandfather killed the Emperor, no one knows I killed Snoke. That’s how it should be. Kylo Ren is who I am and you’re right, I'm no less a war criminal than you are.”

Hux doesn’t expect to hear that. He’s always known about Kylo Ren’s betrayal, of course. He got the news first hand, in the Finalizer, thirty-three days after Ren left for the last time. Due to their not so secret affair, Hux was even interrogated by the Order high command at the time. All things considered (and he had plenty of time to think about it in the brig), it was predictable. Snoke always pushed him too far and Ren was a Republic prince, a fallen one, but a prince nonetheless. At least that was what he kept telling himself in order avoid taking it too personally. 

“You’re telling me that all powerful General Organa didn’t get you off the hook?”

“She’s already done too much.”

“You two…”

“No.”

Ren lowers his head, displaying that wounded look Hux knows too well. Hux barely remembers his mother, but as all orphans there was a time in his early childhood in which he used to fantasize about her and that type of undying love that only mom's children (like Kylo, he supposed) would know, but now he sees that there are things that can't be forgiven even between a loving mother and her only son.

“Oh, Ren. I didn’t-”

“It’s okay. She’s got Rey now.”

“The scavenger?”

“She’s a Jedi and… a good girl. She will give her grandchildren one day. FN-21... Finn will gladly help.”

“Come here, will you.”

Ren sits beside him. Hux embraces his shoulders, brushes his hair with his fingers.

“I shouldn’t have called you traitor. You saved my life. I’m sorry.”

Ren turns and kisses him, grabs his waist, pulls him closer. “I’d never betray you,” he says. 

“I know.”

Ren kisses him again. This feels different, like a farewell. 

“Ren…”

Ren gets up and leaves the cabin. He closes the door.

“Greetings, general,” says Lieutenant Mikata shortly after. “I’m so happy to see you alive and well.”

 

Ren waits outside, under the cold, accusing stares of a couple of First Order officers. One of them he knows very well. She’s Captain Phasma, without the chromed armor. She still looks impressive, even wearing common officer attire. 

It doesn’t take long. Twenty minutes later, Hux leaves the hut, in his uniformed perfection. They even cut his hair. It’s like the Order was still in its prime, and Hux is about to pose for propaganda.

“Thanks for saving General Hux and for leading us here,” says Mikata, the only to address Ren.

A First Order shuttle waits for them. The shadow of the Finalizer hovers under Centurion’s three moons.

Hux doesn’t need to tell them to go ahead.

“It seems that I did what you asked of me after all,” Ren says, after the other officers enter the shuttle.

Hux stops in front of him. He touches Ren’s cheek, traces the lightsaber scar with his thumb.

“I’ll fulfil my duty and I’ll come back for you." 

"Hux-"

"You promissed me another life, remember?”

Ren nodds. "Be careful."

Hux kisses him on the lips, lightly this time. 

Then he leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for grammar and spelling mistakes. English is not my first language. :/  
> Guess I'm kind of crazy to write while there's so much better stuff to read, but what can I do?  
> Feedback is appreciated. :)  
> Tumblr: http://an-r-1.tumblr.com/ (I mostly reblog kylux stuff)


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